Various types of camera holders and grips are presently available for the purpose of accommodating the disengageable mounting thereon of a camera. Generally, such handles or grips also include mounting positioans to carry lights, and other accessories.
Typically, however, such camera handles and/or grips only include a mounting point for a camera, and at best, a single camera light. A camera light is usually mounted onto the grip at a point spaced above the camera, and usually includes some type of holding means for holding the light cable in a fixed position such that activation of the camera will simultaneously activate the flash in order for a picture to be taken.
Of the camera grips and handles presently available, the only adjustment feature which is available for the flash light, is usually a vertically oriented adjustment such that the light may be moved along a vertical axis with respect to the camera. Furthermore, the typical light grip accepts a camera for mounting purposes by means of a threaded screw which is threaded through the mount portion of the grip, and into the bottom portion of the camera. Hence, to disconnect the camera from the grip requires that the screw be threadedly removed in order to remove the camera.
Heretofore, it has been impossible to utilize a variety of other camera accessories, such as umbrellas or the like, in conjunction with a portable camera grip, since the grips have no structure or other mechanisms available for holding accessory equipment. Hence, the portable camera grips which are presently available severely limit the operator in terms of the accessory equipment which may be utilized incident to the taking of photographs. In this connection, it is also well known that the presently available portable grips are also limited in terms of permitting the operator the availability of using a plurality of lights since the camera grips will only accept one light assembly in mountable fashion in conjunction with the camera. One of the difficulties which has been experienced is that the positioning of the light relative to the camera lense may cause conditions known as "red eye" which is a condition experienced where the light has been located too close to the lense, causing the eyes of a photographed subject to appear in a red color. Similarly, the positioning of the flash light relative to the lense is critical in terms of shading, since it may cause excessive darkness or cause the resulting pictures to have excessive light appearance.
Hence, it is deemed important to be able to accurately adjust the light relative to the lense in connection with a portable camera grip, since a great many photographs are in fact taken externally of a photographer's studio.
The present invention provides an improved camera and light grip combination, which not only permits the operator to employ multiple lights in connection therewith, but also permits the operator to mount a variety of camera accessory equipment for the purpose of improving the photographic capability of the operator.